


Dreams

by huliganships



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Marineford Events, Angst, Chapter 2 is an alternate happy ending though, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Marineford Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28677690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huliganships/pseuds/huliganships
Summary: It was ironic. All his life he had thought he deserved to die and now that he had reached the point of no return he was surprised how desperately he didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to leave his friends, his family, his brother.Ace closed his eyes and remembered his brother’s smiling faces to keep the fear at bay.But it was nothing more than a dream and every dream had to end.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Portgas D. Ace & Sabo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	1. Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my lovelies!  
> Sooooo... I have no excuse for this, sorry.  
> But on the bright side, I also wrote a happy end to this! You can find it in Chapter 2 :D If you don't want to read the bead ending read Chapter 1 till you see the double lines and skip to Chapter 2 :)  
> Have fun?  
> Lots of love xxx  
> Huligan

Talking with Jinbe was nice. He always loved to talk about his younger brother. But now the silence descended upon them again and Ace could feel the thoughts that he tried so hard to lock away and ignore threaten to overtake him again.

He had always known it would end like this. One way or another he would die. Since the day he had been conceived he had been on borrowed time. The children of devils and demons didn’t get the right to choose and they didn’t have the right to live. That was a lesson he had learned very early on and he lived by it.

He had tried to shake off his past and embrace his future at the side of Whitebeard, his only true father, and his brothers and sisters of the Whitebeard Pirates, but now that he was facing his end he couldn’t pretend any longer.

He had been undeserving of the life he lived. For a moment he thought back to their childhood and to Sabo. It would’ve been better if he had died in Sabo’s place. Their blond brother had still so much to live for, so many dreams that he wanted to fulfill.

But as soon as that thought came Ace pushed it away again. Sabo wouldn’t want that. It would be disrespectful to his memory to think like that. Death didn’t care if you were a highborn noble or a lowborn scum, it took everyone without hesitation.

Ace just knew he was more deserving of it since he had no right to live in the first place. He had brought nothing but pain and suffering to this world. Everyone would be better off without him in it. After all, what kind of man was he that he couldn’t keep his promises?

_ I promise I won’t die Luffy! _

_ I promise to live life without regrets! _

What a joke he was. Couldn’t even keep a simple promise to the most important person in his life. 

Ace hadn’t cried in years. He was done crying about his own fate, he had mourned Sabo for years, but right now at the end? He couldn’t help but feel choked up. It wasn’t even about his own death. He knew it was inevitable. No, what made him cry was imagining Luffy’s reaction. He knew he would be devastated. His crew and his father would be sad, sure, but they would get over it. Ace wasn’t as important to them as they were to him.

But his younger brother was the one person who Ace couldn’t deny that he truly and deeply loved him and wanted him to live. He had tried to push him away, had tried to distance himself but to no avail. Luffy’s admiration was so obvious, not even Aces’ demons could compete against that.

But that was the reason he was afraid to die. Not for him, but for his brother. Luffy would be crushed. He only hoped his friends would be able to help him through this. He didn’t want to cause his younger brother any suffering. If he had the choice he would gladly take it all upon himself. 

It was ironic. All his life he had thought he deserved to die and now that he had reached the point of no return he was surprised how desperately he didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to leave his friends, his family, his brother.

Ace closed his eyes and remembered his brother’s smiling faces to keep the fear at bay.

* * *

_ He was running. There was no time for stealth or caution. He needed to get to Ace before… _

_ He needed to get to Ace. _

_ He needed to save his brother. _

_ The sound of his feet hitting the ground while he was running spurred him on further and he ran faster. _

* * *

Footsteps approached his cell. Confused Ace opened his eyes. Was it time already? In front of his cell stood Sengoku and a couple of guards. He motioned to the guards who opened the door and approached Ace.

“What’s this?” he croaked out, his voice rough from talking all night to Jinbei and the repressed emotions he was careful to hide. “Isn’t it a bit early for my big show?”

“There was a change of plans,” Sengoku answered, his glasses hiding his eyes. “But don’t worry, everyone who has to see this will, I guarantee it.”

Wordless, Ace let himself be led out of his cell, only sparing a single glance at Jinbei. The Fishman gave him a slow, solemn nod and watched as Ace was led away through the dimly lit corridors.

* * *

_ His lungs burned. His legs burned. Everything was hurting and he was exhausted.  _

_ But he knew that if he stopped he wouldn’t make it in time. _

_ Ace would die and he… he didn’t know what he would do. _

_ And he didn’t want to find out. _

_ He needed to be faster. _

* * *

The stairs seemed to go on forever. The bright light on the end of them seemed to mock Ace. This wasn’t the light of hope, the light at the end of a dark tunnel. This light meant he was one step closer to the end, to his end. It was hurting his eyes, which hadn’t seen sunlight in days.

The guards shackled his bindings to the scaffold and took two steps back. The plaza in front of the towering construct was filled with marines of all ranks. They were standing orderly in their lines, not a single person out of place. Ace quietly thought to himself how boring this life looked from up here.

He expected Sengoku to make some kind of big speech, throwing around words like justice and peace and others like it. Marines like him and Garp seemed to love those words. But no matter what he had expected, it wasn’t what happened next.

* * *

_ There were others around him, running alongside him, but he ignored them.  _

_ His only goal was Ace, it was reaching the top of that scaffold. The ship had been a good distraction, the hoards of pirates and marines mingling together to be a perfect shield. _

_ He didn’t look at any of them, his eyes focused on his brother, the only thing that mattered today.  _

_ He needed to get there first, he needed to protect Ace, he needed to protect  _ **_him_ ** _. _

_ He had sworn it after all. _

_ They were brothers. _

* * *

Ace was devasted, he was elated, he was experiencing feelings he had never wanted to feel again and feelings he never thought he could feel. His father, his family, his  _ little brother _ , were all fighting tooth and nail to save him.

Ace didn’t want them to die, he didn’t want them to be hurt, not for him, not when he didn’t deserve to live. But he couldn’t stop how he felt. He couldn’t stop how  _ happy  _ that made him. It made him feel like he was loved, that he mattered.

Of course, he had known that he was important to them. But now he  _ knew _ .

Talking to the old man hadn’t helped either. Seeing him cry like that made Ace almost regret his choices. Made him almost wish he had become a marine instead. It wouldn’t have been possible of course. Never for Ace, never for Luffy. But for a split second, he dreamed. He dreamed of Luffy and Sabo, together with him, an unstoppable force on the ocean. Of Garp looking at them with pride he didn’t have to hide.

But it was nothing more than a dream of course. Ace wouldn’t change his choices. He was who he was and he promised Luffy to live with no regrets. He wanted to try to keep at least that promise, even if he may not be able to keep the other one.

_ I promise I won’t die Luffy! _

That was the least he had to do.

* * *

_ He had lost sight of them. The scaffold had fallen and now the chaos was even greater than before if that was even possible. He could see where the fighting was the thickest, where the Whitebeard Pirates were trying to form a path. _

_ His eyes were jumping from person to person, searching frantically for the two people he wanted to see most in the world. _

_ There! _

_ His blood froze at the scene in front of him. Luffy kneeling on the floor, his hand outstretched. Akainu standing above him, his hand raised to strike. Ace running towards them, his face desperate. _

_ Faster, he needed to be faster! _

* * *

Ace didn’t know what just happened. His head was reeling. Luffy was in danger and his body had moved on his own. But suddenly he was knocked backward, an arm around him, blond hair in his vision.

“Made it in time!”

Ace wasn’t sure what he was seeing. It looked like a ghost. If a ghost could age. Before he could say anything Jinbei jumped past him, stopping Akainu’S second attack aimed at the ghost’s back.

“Fire Fist! Take your brother and get out of here!” 

“He’s right!” the ghost yelled, pulling him and Luffy to his feet. “We’ll have time to talk later!”

“... Sabo?” The unusual timid voice of Luffy made both Ace and the ghost stop in their tracks, just like they used to as kids. Whenever Luffy used that tone of voice they knew they had to do something or their brother would cry.

Now Luffy was standing next to them, one hand still clutching at the ghost. His face was pale and drawn tight from the exhaustion of the few hours, days and his eyes were big and filled with tears. Ace’s heart was breaking a little, seeing him like that and his first instinct was to reach out, but the ghost beat him to it. 

“Yes, Luffy, it’s me,” the ghost said, grabbing his, their, younger brother by the shoulders. “But we need to get out of here now.” 

He turned around, facing Ace again and for the first time in years, Ace felt like he could  _ breathe _ .

* * *

* * *

_ They were running, faster and faster, and no one could stop them. They were an unstoppable force on the ocean. Garp looked at them with open pride, because even though they were not marines, they were his and he would always hope for their happiness. _

_ But it was nothing more than a dream and every dream had to end. _

* * *

He hadn’t seen him coming. There hadn’t been any time to react. 

One second Luffy had been running next to them and in the next, he wasn’t anymore. Ace looked to his left, to the place where his little brother had always been, his once dead brother at his right and the things that had finally been fixed again had suddenly shattered again.

Akainu was standing over Luffy, his coat slashed and bloody from his fight with Jinbei, his fist alight with the heat and flames of his devil’s fruit.

His fist, that was protruding out of their little brother’s back.

Ace didn’t know who screamed, if it was him or Sabo or if it was them both. He only knew the hot, red fury overtaking his vision, his body moving on his own. His tears evaporated before they even left his eyes, his body overheating to the point where it was almost hurt by his own flames, but it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter that next to him Sabo was fighting, his voice hoarse from his screams, the tears staining his face his fists raised, alive and the incarnation of devastation.

It didn’t matter because Luffy was lying on the floor, motionless and pale. It didn’t matter because the only person that Ace had ever loved so completely, the only person that had always been there trailing after him, the only person who he knew in his heart would always be his family was dead now.

* * *

_ The world was burning. Nothing would ever be as it had been. _

_ Lives were lost and the consequences of that would send their ripples over the entire Grand Line and beyond.  _

_ Eight lives would lose their driving force, their purpose, riddled with the guilt of their failure, of being unable to help when their captain had needed them the most. _

_ Two lives, now reunited would never recover. They had set out on their paths that day, one prepared to die, one prepared to save. Both had failed and even though they now had each other they would never stop blaming themselves. _

_ The Age of the Pirates came to a close on that day. No one knew it yet, not the marines, not the pirates. But something had been lost, something important, a driving force for a lot of events to come. _

_ But now things would change. And two brothers would burn the world down for what had been taken from them. _


	2. Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here is the good ending :D

_ They were running, faster and faster, and no one could stop them. They were an unstoppable force on the ocean. Garp looked at them with open pride, because even though they were not marines, they were his and he would always hope for their happiness. _

_ And even though it seemed too good to be true, to be nothing more than a dream, it was real and would change their lives forever. _

* * *

The memories of the rest of their escape were blurry. Ace knew they dodged several large attacks and the only reason they got out of there in the first place was the convenient appearance of that strange pirate captain in his submarine. 

He wasn’t clear on why he appeared or why he helped them but all of that didn’t matter right now. Even the thoughts on his family and his father who had died to protect them were sidelined for a little while.

What mattered were the two people right in front of him.

His brothers.

Alive.

Both of them.

And even though he had suffered and lost so much in the last weeks, days,  _ hours _ , Ace felt free, alive, and grateful. He knew these feelings wouldn’t last, the darkness would find them again eventually, but for now?

For now, they were just grateful to be alive and to be together again.


End file.
